Room to Fly

From the Ferret Tarot, the Queen of Wands; from the Nature's Wisdom Oracle, Feathers:

A good director creates an environment, which gives the actor the encouragement to fly.

~Kevin Bacon

          A Marine sergeant can take many people and resources, create order and strategy, and move them all toward a goal. But if you're looking for a director who has the skills to organize and mobilize, who will also support and encourage, look no further than the Queen of Wands. As Bacon stated, such a person allows others to creatively engage with situations - a great way to develop minds that see obstacles as challenges, enabling unique and original solutions to be found.

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.

~John Maynard Keynes

Tolerance for Pain

From the Ferret Tarot, the Three of Swords; from the Nature's Wisdom Oracle, "Feathers:"

          In my early morning, pre-coffee haze, I thought this was a bird pooping on this poor ferret's head. Of course in a way it is; betrayal and loss feels very personal. In this mindset, it's easy to get obsessed with the "why me" questions and never consider the other person's viewpoint. I can get completely caught up in how badly you hurt me without me giving a thought to what I might have done to set the ball rolling. The Feathers card parallels the winged heart; both are a symbol of air and thoughts. Those thoughts left to run amok can do more harm than good, because they are often far from reality. Instead, I think I'll try to remember the wisdom of Jack Kornfield:

Everybody has their own burden. Everybody has their own measure of sorrow. Relatively speaking, some might carry an enormous burden, but everybody has a fair measure. It’s just part of the human condition. 

We don’t trust that our heart has the capacity to open to the sorrows as well as the beauty of the world... One of the great Buddhist teachings—it’s a type of medicine, you might say—is to remind ourselves, and others, that we all have a great capacity of heart. We have within us buddhanature, the capacity to hold all the sorrows and joys of the world. An aspect of our great openness is our ability to tolerate suffering.